In the master's thesis, we investigate the fine motor skills of children with articulation disorder. The definition of fine motor skills includes movements or a combination of movements of the muscles of the wrist, hand, fingers, and eyes. The development of fine motor skills depends on adequate muscle strength, joint stability, perceptual dexterity of the hands and eyes, coordination of both sides of the body, and appropriate motor planning. During early childhood, typically developing children make rapid progress in these skills, while it is difficult to catch up. Adequately developed fine motor skills of the hand determines the individual's level of independence and self-care, and when entering school, they include important skills in the literacy process. Articulation disorder involves deviations in the production of spoken voices, which are mainly functional problems at the phonetic level. Speech and language therapists use a variety of therapeutic approaches to correct mispronunciations, focusing on the motor aspect of speech production. Speech is fundamentally a complex motor-coordinated activity. Previous research confirms the link between speech-language development and motor development, and some studies further indicate that motor difficulties are more evident in the presence of an articulation disorder. In the empirical part, we present the design and results of the study in which we were interested in the characteristics of the development of fine motor skills in 4- and 6-year-old children with articulation disorder. The research consists of both a quantitative (test) and a qualitative (descriptive assessment based on a checklist) part. The participants in the study were 35 children with articulation disorder aged 4;0-4;5 and 6;0-6;11 years;months. For the quantitative part, the children first completed part of the Slovenian adapted ABC test instrument: Movement Assessment Battery for Children – Movement ABC-2, which includes tasks to assess hand dexterity. The results showed variations in hand dexterity for individuals with articulation disorder, but on average, we found no significant differences compared to the set national norms based on the performance of typically developing children. The results of one third of four-year-olds (33.3 %) and almost two thirds of six-year-olds (64.7 %) obtained with the Movement ABC-2 instrument indicate significant difficulties in fine motor skills of the hands. At the same time, however, the children in the older group nevertheless performed significantly better than the children in the younger group. In the qualitative work, we observed the children's approach and performance of the test tasks to gain a broader picture of motor skills and abilities. We found that children with articulation disorder showed difficulties in different areas. In the younger group, deviations were prevalent in the item predominant use of one hand, with most participants changing hands during the tasks. Furthermore, they were using an inappropriate grip when picking up or holding an object, and failing to control their hand posture, while on average they were scored best in the apparent hand asymmetry item. For the older group, the difficulties were most pronounced in controlling the use of force, speed and dexterity of finger movements, and bilateral co-ordination, while they were scored best in the area of task focus.
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